August 22, 2018

  • Amazing American Classics from the "Next Generation"

     

    Ruggles/Stucky/Harbison: Orchestral Works
    National Orchestral Institute Philharmonic/David Alan Miller
    Naxos 8.559836
    Total Time:  65:28
    Recording:   ****/****
    Performance: ****/****

     

    David Alan Miller continues to build a strong catalogue of performances of latter 20th Century American Music.  The present release is the third in an annual recording made in Maryland with the National Orchestral Institute Philharmonic.  The orchestra is made up of rising international and national musicians who audition to be a part of the ensemble whose players often sit on major orchestras across the world.  Miller conducted the first release which features music of Corigliano, Torke, and Copland.  The second release featured a performance of Randall Thompson’s Second Symphony coupled with a work by John Adams and the first symphony of Barber.  Each release thus tends to pair a “classic” modern American work with a couple of newer ones.  In this case, music by the late Steven Stucky (1949-2016) and John Harbison (b. 1949) is featured with works composed in 2004.  The earlier piece reaches back to Carl Ruggles (1876-1971).

    Sun-Treader (1926-1931) is one of ten works by the elusive Carl Ruggles but it is a staple of any orchestra devoted to important 20th Century American music.  Initially, the piece was to have been part of a program for the International Composer’s Guild conducted by Varese, but the piece was not completed until five years after the concert and premiered subsequently in Paris.  It would take another three decades before it was performed in America.  That concert was with Jean Martinon and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.  The piece impressed Michael Tilson-Thomas whose own dramatic reading is among the classic recordings in the catalogue.  The piece was inspired by Robert Browning’s poem Pauline (1832).  As the work opens, we get this sense of giant steps moving forward in Ruggles’ atonal language.  His style is not entirely serial per se, but he liked to write long lines where repeated notes did not occur until seven or more had appeared.  Thus the music is perhaps closer to Berg making it perhaps a bit more accessible in this expressionist-modernist style.  Miller’s performance is a full minute quicker than Tilson Thomas with the Buffalo Philharmonic, and one minute more than Dohnanyi’s breezier Decca release from Cleveland.  His interpretive approach though is to let the almost Romantic-like thematic lines swell beautifully against the stark pillars of harmony that build up around them.  Most telling is the crisp appearance of the different instrumental sections that really help delineate the primary motifs and harmonies.  The result is often a piece that begins to feel like an amassed suite from some long lost cinematic experience.  This performance is going to be hard to beat sonically, but it is worth noting that this Ruggles’ work tends to be coupled interesting regardless so it will be one of many versions fans of American symphonic music will be able to explore in their personal music library.

    Steven Stucky’s critically-acclaimed Second Concerto for Orchestra (2004) would receive the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for music.  It was premiered by Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.  The highly-complex organization of the work is based on assigning pitches to different letters of the alphabet.  (Similar to Shostakovich’s “signature” motif in his work, or the assignation of pitches to Bach’s name).  Stucky created musical motifs for the conductor, orchestra, and even the designer of the Walt Disney Concert Hall where the premiere occurred.  Putting that aside, one can instead follow the composer’s concepts through the three movements.  The opening “Overture (with friends)” features references to composers Ravel, Stravinsky, and Sibelius (all somewhat specialties of Salonen and the orchestra).  These small cells help provide the forward motion in an almost magical an drich Impressionistic opening with a sort of post-minimalist nervous energy.  The central movement allows the listener to enter into the musical development of these signature motifs in what is essentially a theme and variations that continues this enchanting musical backdrop that further explores the orchestra.  Along the way are some very exposed and delicate solos.  The full extent of orchestral color blossoms further in the “Finale” with explodes at first with brass and then enters into a fascinating Impressionistic milieu with delicate solo wind writing and celesta.  The piece has a rather big bass drum interjection in the outer movements that dramatically adds to the intensity of the music, but sometimes overwhelms the audio pickup.  That said, this is an engaging performance of a fine work.

    The Seattle Symphony commissioned John Harbison’s (b. 1938) fourth symphony for their centennial celebrations in 2004.  The piece is cast in five movements that feature musical ideas that are integrally linked across the work allowing for the listener to see how they are adapted or transformed both as one hears the work for the first time, and as one returns to it on repeated occasions.  The opening “Fanfare” has an exciting series of jaunty rhythms with big rich jazz-like harmonies that become episodic with a variety of interesting spun out ideas exploring the colors of the orchestra in between this unifying technique.  The music reaches back perhaps a bit to Leonard Bernstein’s harmonic and rhythmic explorations.  In the “Intermezzo”, bells and chimes add to a rather more jagged conception of the thematic line.  A playful “Scherzo” follows with ideas being tossed to and fro throughout the orchestra.  The heart of the work may very well be the intense “Threnody” which explores this sense of inevitable loss.  The “Finale” moves us closer to the more traditional sense of “symphony”.  The performance here is quite excellent and the interpretation s one that should bear up well while becoming a standard to measure future recordings.

    The program of the current release features music that is an excellent introduction to all three composers.  The series itself is equally worth exploring further and this is as good a place as any to start.  Perhaps a future release can reach back a little farther to our 19th Century heritage.